and creating of it an ethereal, lyrical abstraction. Monet's method of painting is scientific in nature. Monet did not simply walk to the poplar stream, set up his canvas and paint. The poplars series is the culmination of an eight month study of the effect of light on a particular scene. Still, Monet cannot claim to have followed his own method of strict scientific representation. The act of creating poplars which told the "truth" required Monet to take consideration of aesthetics and forced him to do much of his painting after the event he painted had passed. The poplars are a product of this double-barreled approach. Monet began by rowing to the poplars in his flat-bottomed boat and observing them. One can imagine that his scientific nature would require him to observe the poplars on several different occasions before picking up a brush to paint. Monet's next step was to sketch the basic idea of the painting. A sketch he did for huis haystack series reveals the formal elements he saw as most important. The sketch captures the basic forms of the stacks and a general layout of where the objects are positioned. The sketch also focuses on the locations of the shadows and the lines of light in the sky. Monet had a general idea of the form of his painting before he began his work. After preparing himself with an understanding of the forms of the Poplar, Monet began to paint. Virginia Spate describes his method as follows: [First] Monet laid in the majors elements of the composition with broad parallel or criss-cross strokes and long loopy lines. He covered the entire canvas in a first session of no more than an hour. Later, Monet smudged the strokes and strengthened the calligraphic lines. . . Monet must have returned to it again and again, using an extraordinary range of brushstrokes - thick and fat or fine, almost linear ones, scumbles, tiny dabs and even flecks of paint - to build up a surface so dense that some of the paintings origina...
